A Single Breath's Moment
by Alex Prosper
Summary: Math is overwhelmed by despair as the Cauldron Born approach, but in a single breath's moment before death all sorrow is shattered by hope.


Disclaimer: Characters and affiliated material is all property of Lloyd Alexander. I make no profit off this.

Edited on 8/6/12

A Single Breath's Moment

The High King had always imagined his death most likely would come in battle—even when he began to age and his white hair attested to his survival in a war-torn land. The long years—decades—of battle, both in the field and in the court, weighed far harsher than the crown itself. A crueler king would have enjoyed the position better; and thought himself more competent, no doubt.

_Is that what you think, Arawn? That in your inability to love your people you know how best to rule them? Am I a foolish old man to you?_

It must be so. And the proof was spread before him: miles of black figures shrouded in earth's dust marching their lifeless feet towards Caer Dathyl. Arawn had a sardonic sense of humor and must have thought it amusing to send him the very men he once ruled, risen from their graves and rest in deathless servitude to their enemy, to slay their king.

There was nothing ominous about the sky over the battlefield, as told in bard songs. It was perfectly golden and perfectly beautiful. The peaks of the Eagle Mountains were misty and pure. Snow glowed under the retreating sun, and the stone walls and towers of his castle were gilded and glorious like in every other dusk he had ever seen them. Math watched from the courtyard, beyond the great gates flung opened to welcome the walking dead back home—even if their intent was its destruction. Math would stand his ground.

Not awaiting the inevitable siege had been a prudent decision. They would not have stood a chance surrounded by an army of warriors that could not be stopped by sword nor thwarted by shield.

His death was inescapable now, and, like he told a hardy young warrior, who had the gall and the astuteness to pity a king's role: he was not loath to grasp its hand. He only wished it was not in the day he had feared most his entire life. The fall of Caer Dathyl, his beloved home. One stronghold that had stood against the evils Arawn waged upon Prydain was as good as gone now, and the death lord's victory was half.

Math did not fear death, but the sharp knife embedded now in his chest compelled something within his soul to desire a few more years of life.

_My people, I've failed you. _

He wept as the throng of black-garbed warriors poured through the gates and strode swiftly but patiently towards the High King and his guards. The lads remained impassive in the face of death, and before the livid faces of their long fallen comrades. They honored their king.

Math truly wished he had more time to undo his mistakes; to protect his kingdom from this tragedy he had striven more than half a century to prevent. _Perhaps I truly am a foolish old man._

When the first line of Cauldron Born neared almost within fighting range, Math lifted his sword over his head. His men followed but remained still. They would go down as warriors.

Suddenly the deathless men stopped and something in their lifeless, pallid faces seemed to dawn as if for less than a single breath's moment they recognized their king, their countrymen, their brothers. The moment passed instantly but it had been long enough to shatter all remorse and disappointment that had coiled ruthlessly around the High King's heart. His shoulders were suddenly much lighter and he felt decades younger.

"They remembered..." someone whispered behind him and Math knew his men, too, were now lifted from despair.

Even forced from their graves to be enslaved under the foulest chains an evil man can forge, even in their oblivion and pain, the Cauldron Born had for just a single breath's moment remembered the people they had once loved. It was enough to let Math and his precious lads, dauntless beside him, know that the land and people they were about to leave behind would fare well. That Arawn's victory was _only_ half. That his power, stolen with manipulation and lies, was not absolute and as long as men remembered what they fought for in their internal battles—what they strove to protect—no chains and venomous lies from a snake would suffice to murder and bury the true hearts of men. As greedy, selfish and foolish these men might be, they set aside their petty quarrels and united when their land, their families, the precious life, which beneath their ignorant and careless exteriors they held most dear, made heard its final plea.

Men bore the power of good and evil both. But Arawn thought them capable only of corruption and that would be his undoing. The truly foolish king would be revealed when he failed to thrall those clear of sight and goodwill to his sweetly hissed promises. His chicanery unveiled, he would topple.

_Clear of sight. _Just as a blade after another struck his body, and as his aged vessel crumbled under the onslaught, he remembered the boy whom his nephew had spoken of with gentle affection in his voice, a bold youth whose shrewd eyes had pitied a profoundly burdened king. Eyes which knew the burden of a king.


End file.
